Fastest 9 U.S.companies winning recovery race

Minutes released this week from the Federal Reserve might show if the central bank thinks the economic recovery is moving fast enough. But for these nine companies, the recovery has been the best thing that’s happened to them – and they’re not showing any signs of fading.

Nine companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500, including drugmaker Alexion Pharmaceuticals, customer management service provider Salesforce.com and burrito maker Chipotle Mexican Grill have been the fastest and most consistently growing since 2009, the year of the recession’s trough, according to an analysis of S&P Capital IQ data by USA TODAY. These are the winners of the economic recovery.

To eliminate the lucky companies with just a few years of a hot streak, to make the list these companies had to post at least 15% revenue growth in each calendar year since 2010. These aren’t has-beens, either. Analysts must forecast the companies’ revenue to increase by at least 15% this calendar year.

Alexion is the biggest winner overall. If analysts are right, the company’s revenue will grow 41% this year due to strong demand for the its blood disease treatments. That comes after the company’s revenue already grew 37% in 2013 and 45% in 2012. Another drugmaker, Actavis, isn’t far behind with 315% growth since 2009. The maker of various vaccines and other drugs is expected to grow 34% this year after increasing revenue by 47% last year.

Since this list only includes consistent winners, there might be some perennial favorites investors would expect to see. This eliminates companies that had one or more blistering years of growth amid the recovery, but have been stumbled a few times. Single-serving at-home brewing king Keurig Green Mountain’s revenue has grown 421% since 2010, which is faster than some of the nine. But analysts only expect revenue to grow by 7% this year after 9% growth last year, showing that the growth has been fading.

And digital gadget maker, Apple, too, doesn’t make the cut despite its impressive 299% revenue growth since 1999. Revenue is only expected to grow by 6% this year after inching up 5.6% last year.

Below are the fastest growing S&P 500 companies that increased revenue by at least 15% in each year since 2010:

Company

Symbol

Rev. change since 2009

Stock ch. YTD

Alexion Pharmaceuticals

ALXN

464.6%

18.8%

Actavis

ACT

315.2%

23.5%

Salesforce.com

CRM

304.7%

-6.1%

Amazon.com

AMZN

270.4%

-25.3%

Priceline

PCLN

262.4%

-2.2%

Under Armour

UA

241.9%

6.9%

Cognizant Technology

CTSH

215.9%

-6.6%

Chipotle Mexican

CMG

156.8%

-6.1%

American Tower

AMT

134.4%

11.3%

Source: S&P Capital IQ

But while these nine companies are enjoying the economy’s rebound more than any others, investors aren’t being taken along for the ride. Shares of the nine companies, on average, are up just 1.6% this year, trailing the 1.8% gain by the S&P 500.